All posts tagged climate change

It is reported that all is not well at the extraordinary circus in Copenhagen. The talks appear to be going not quite as the organizers planned.

True, many international summits aimed at securing a deal feature a large amount of expectation management with those taking part seeking to create a sense of mounting excitement and drama. Then, when a resolution comes with minutes to spare, those who sealed the deal can claim that this proves their brilliance. But this time, from a distance, it looks like more than that. There is the possibility of there being no deal, or only a weak accord patched together to spare the embarrassment of the leaders descending on the Danish capital.

Excitement is building about Copenhagen (myself, I can hardly wait). But what is actually going to be achieved at the UN’s climate change summit when planeloads of politicians, officials, NGO types and campaigners fly in? These summits are certainly great fun for those involved but what, realistically, will be the end result?

President Obama has said that he wants there to be a meaningful deal at Copenhagen, and I’m sure he does, but that’s looking less and less likely. Now the U.K. government has further clouded the outlook. The BBC reports Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband admitting that there won’t be a legally-binding treaty. But wasn’t that supposed to be the point of everyone trooping to Copenhagen and staying there between December the 7th and 18th?

“We would have preferred a full legal treaty, it has to be said,” said Mr Miliband. “I think the important thing about the agreement we now seek in December is that while it may be a political agreement it must lead, on a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty. A lot of people still think that we can do something that will lead to real implementation in the fight against climate change. Also, I’ll be completely clear about this: I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it’s a wholly inadequate agreement.”

Of course, it is possible that expectations are being managed down only so that any subsequent deal can be talked up at the culmination of the Copenhagen shindig. But it doesn’t feel like that’s the case; the obstacles seem genuine. Indeed, it looks like it will produce a ”political agreement”, maybe without any numbers in it. (As a mentor of mine, and veteran political journalist used to say: “This agreement is not worth the paper it’s not written on.”)

You may think all this a cause for celebration, or you may not. I mention it simply because shortly there will begin non-stop Copenhagen coverage on the broadcast media and in the public prints around the globe. And it is worth being aware of the mundane political reality of Copenhagen as the media-narrative, with its fake drama, starts to play out.

The same questions will be repeated like an incessant drum-beat, speeding up and getting louder as we move ever closer to the great day when the summit opens: Will there be deal? Can they save the planet? Will there be a treaty? Is half the world’s population going to drown/fry if the people in Copenhagen don’t sign up to something now?!

It is simply worth remembering before all that starts, right from the outset, that this is about politics. And that key participants are already acknowledging that what goes on at Copenhagen is not, to use a phrase carelessly, the end of the world.